UAE-DEFENCE-EXHIBITION

Visitors stand by a mock-up of an QX-1 loitering munitions “kamikaze drone” by EDGE advanced technology group for defence on display at the UMEX Exhibition at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre in the gulf emirate on February 22, 2022. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

BEIRUT — The EDGE Group, a sprawling Emirati defense conglomerate, is opening its first international office in Brazil, the company said, as it hopes to make inroads in a potentially lucrative Latin American defense market.

The EDGE LATAM regional office will be inaugurated shortly in Brasilia, the country capital, the firm announced Tuesday as it was participating in the LAAD Defence & Security 2023 show in Rio de Janeiro. EDGE and 10 of its subsidiaries are for the first time participating in that defense expo, billed as the largest in Latin America.

“This is a tremendously proud moment for EDGE as a relatively young company of just over three years. Today’s announcement of our new LATAM regional office in Brasilia is a clear signal of our confidence in markets across the continent and the valuable opportunities they present for international business development, knowledge sharing, and greater prosperity,” Mansour AlMulla, Managing Director and CEO of EDGE said in a statement.

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In addition to the new office, this week EDGE also signed two defense agreements with Brazilian firms Condor and SIATT to explore the cooperation in non-lethal technologies and smart weapons systems. The company said it’s Memorandum of Understanding with Condor is meant to help “combine the companies’ capabilities, and assess the viability and feasibility of jointly identifying and implementing business opportunities across the UAE and Brazilian markets,” according to the company’s statement Wednesday. The MoU with SIATT is focused specifically on “business opportunities in the smart weapons domain.”

Ryan Bohl, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence consultancy RANE Network, said the move is part of EDGE’s “bigger drive to grow their market share” and also noted that South America could represent a region of “relatively low political risk.”

Latin America “has yet to become a region of heightened great power competition and/or the target of US sanctions campaigns in a bid to reshape the region’s geopolitics,” Bohl said.

EDGE’s global ambitions were reflected in $1.2 billion in defense exports business it did last year, according to the company, though that was still dwarfed by its work for the UAE government. The conglomerate has previously expanded abroad by buying stakes in foreign defense firms, like a recent deal for an Estonian robotics corporation.

Bohl noted that beyond EDGE, South America is “an entirely new market for the Emiratis, at least according to [arms sales] data. There haven’t been any public arms transfers to the [Lat in American] region in the UAE’s history,” Bohl told Breaking Defense.

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He added that it’s a potential area of growth for Emirati firms, although they’ll be competing with American, British and French suppliers who have traditionally dominated the region.

As for what specific defense articles could be of interest, Bohl said, “Brazil is likely going to be interested in drone technology, both for the purposes of anti-piracy (Brazil is taking part in anti-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, for example), anti-terrorism, and border monitoring for drug traffickers. Its rugged borders with Venezuela will also be a place where Brazil is looking to develop new drone capabilities that would help stem drug trafficking and refugee flows.”